And Here We Go: Some Thoughts On The Oscar Nominations

Aw yes, that time of year where everyone exclaims how the Oscars are bullshit, irrelevant, etc, etc, even though we tune in every year to see who's nominated. I guess that's the thing with the Oscars- love them or hate them, they're addictive to movie buffs. Even if you're critical of awards, if you love movies, you care who gets in and, more importantly, who doesn't. I'll go through some of the major categories, giving my thoughts. To be honest, I haven't seen every performance or film nominated yet, but judging from what I have seen, I'll say who I think will win in several categories, as well as the surprising omissions.

Best Picture- Like last year, we have nine nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty. Out of the nine I still need to see Amour, Beasts, Pi and Zero Dark Thirty. Right now I think it's between Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook, especially since SLP's director, David O. Russell, previously nominated for 2010's The Fighter, got a Best Director nomination over Ben Affleck for Argo and Kathryn Bigelow for ZD30.  SLP is the type of crowd pleaser like the previous two Best Picture winners, The King's Speech and The Artist, that the Academy often loves. Moreover, Russell has never won Best Director or has a Best Picture winner under his belt, whereas Spielberg already has two Best Director Oscars, for 1993's Schindler's List and 1998's Saving Private Ryan. He also won the Best Picture Oscar for Schindler's List. While Speilberg is a titan, the Academy may want to award Russell for his strong work over the years.

Best Director- I think this category provided the most surprising omissions of the race this year, with Affleck and Bigelow, perceived locks for their work with Argo and ZD30, respectively, shut out. Other big names like Tom Hooper, who has been the subject of controversy over his directon of Les Miserables, and Quentin Tarantino, who directed Django Unchained, were also left out. The line up is as follows: Michael Haneke, Amour, Ang Lee. Life of Pi, David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook, Steven Spielberg, Lincoln, and Benh Zeitlin for his debut feature, Beasts of the Southern Wild. At 30 years old, he's the youngest nominee in this particular category. Good for him getting a nomination for his first film. With the four big names, Affleck, Bigelow, Hooper and Tarantino out of this category, it does leave Russell some room to take the prize. His biggest competition in this category, again, is Spielberg.

Best Actor- Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook, Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables, Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln, Joaquin Phoenix, The Master, Denzel Washington, Flight. I'm glad to see Phoenix here. There was some talk that Pheonix's harsh comments about the Academy and awards in general would lead to hm being left, particularly with The Master losing steam. But here he is. I was really blown away by him in The Master, and I think it's a career best performance- he'd be my pick for Best Actor. However, Day Lewis is the frontrunner for his warm and commanding performance as President Abraham Lincoln. If Les Miserables was more of a frontrunner, Jackman may be more of a threat, but the film, especially without a Best Director nomination, is vulnerable. In fact, Day Lewis' competition may mostly come from (gasp) Bradley Cooper. The internet would explode if Cooper won over Day Lewis, but if SLP is loved enough, who knows, right? John Hawkes, for his role in The Sessions, didn't make it, even though he was a leading contender for a nomination, Jamie Foxx's performance as the title character in Django Unchained also didn't make it, probably due to the more animated performances around him in that film.

Best Actress- Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty, Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook, Emmanuelle Riva, Amour, Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Naomi Watts, The Impossible. I thought Lawrence was stunning in SLP, so I wouldn't be upset if she won. I think it's between her and Chastain, who I like a lot too, for ZD30. ZD30 is finally out in my city so I'll be seeing it Sunday. From what I hear about Watts in The Impossible, it strikes me as the type of performance we may look back on as the one that should've won. Watts can be argued to be overdue as well. Wallis, only six when we shot Beasts, received a nomination for her breakthrough performance. She's the newcomer that this category always seems to like. While I haven't seen Amour, it'd be awesome if a legendary actress like Riva won.

Best Supporting Actor- Alan Arkin, Argo, Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook, Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master, Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln, Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained. Like last year, the supporting actor category is full of veterans, although it doesn't have a newcomer like Jonah Hill last year. Also, all these guys are previous winners. Jones seems to be the frontrunner, particularly if Lincoln is going for a sweep. Though, as I keep saying, if people love SLP, De Niro could be on his way to a third Oscar. Though I like Waltz, I'm disappointed Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson had made it for Django Unchained.

Best Supporting Actress- Amy Adams, The Master, Sally Field, Lincoln, Anne Hathaway,  Les Miserables, Helen Hunt, The Sessions, Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook. Poor Amy Adams. This her fourth nomination in this category over the last seven years, and she keeps getting blocked. Even with Adams' overdue factor, I think this race is between Field and Hathaway. I wasn't really blown away by Field in Lincoln, so I prefer if Hathaway for her short but devastating performance in Les Miserables. I wish Hathaway's co-star, Samantha Barks, had also gotten in. She was a real stand out.

So, those are my thoughts. I'm glad Moonrise Kingdom got a screenplay nomination and a tad disappointed The Dark Knight Rises didn't get in for any of the tech categories. I loved Adele's theme for Skyfall, so excited to see her here, as well as Roger Deakins' for his stunning cinematography in that film. The Academy Awards are on February 24, so until then, have fun predicting. And don't forget, Golden Globes, sans Ricky Gervais, are this sunday.

Why Do We Fall?: "The Dark Knight Rises"

Minor Spoilers Ahead

Where to begin with The Dark Knight Rises? While I may be a tad disappointed in it, I can't generalize and say this movie is a disappointment, or a failure. Believe you me, it's not. We get plenty of blockbusters each year that blow stuff up and attempt to be epic. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, despite being too lengthy in some respects, genuinely feels epic. It's scale harkens back to an almost old fashioned idea of what a Hollywood epic once was and can still be and it ends Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy on a well balanced note of conclusion and continuation.

It's remarkable that The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises are all superhero films yet despite that genre label they all seem to exist in a different genre of their own. Also, on the tonal spectrum they're miles apart. The Avengers is probably the most "comic booky" of the three, the one that's most in love its central characters and what it means for them all to finally come together in one movie. It's also probably the funniest of the three and it doesn't forget to give its larger than life very relatable human moments. The Amazing Spider-Man is the sweetest and most intimate of the three. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have a sexy and cute chemistry that sets the groundwork for the tragedy we know is to come. It's a pretty low key movie, more concerned with Peter Parker than Spider-Man in some respects- though it does have some great shots that feel straight out of a  Spider-Man comic book.

The Dark Knight Rises is the darkest of the three superhero films this summer and tonally the one most distant from its comic book origins. This feels like the least "Batmany" of Christopher Nolan's trilogy and I'm still trying to figure out how much of a good or bad thing that is. Nolan's vision from the very beginning, with Batman Begins, was to ground Batman in the real world. It wasn't a completely realistic universe but it played like it was. The same with The Dark Knight, which was a superhero epic within the context of crime drama. Both films achieved an almost perfect balance between creating a contemporary and stripped down universe while still feeling quintiessentially Batman. After making such definitive and mythic statements on Batman, It was no doubt difficult for Nolan to know where to go next. With The Dark Knight Rises Nolan has made the most "real world" feeling of his Batman films yet. All three films in the the trilogy are reflections of America's inner turmoils. In Batman Begins it was a battle against a city's police corruption.  The Dark Knight asked the question of how one fights terrorism in a post 9/11 world. In The Dark Knight Rises, it's economic crisis and how it leads to Gotham being at risk of annihilation. The previous two films were able to relate the mythology of Batman to its conflicts but this film seems the least concerned with Batman's place within its battle.

The Dark Knight Rises begins eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has retired the cape and cowl after taking the fall for Harvey Dent's (Aaron Eckhart) crimes as Two-Face. Nolan has joked that while he hasn't been able to do his Howard Hughes biopic, he has filled that gap by making these Batman films. Bruce certainly isn't too far away from Hughes' type of eccentricity. He's become a recluse and Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) mentions that he doesn't have long fingernails like people say. I love the detail of Bruce becoming a recluse because it fits in to Nolan's "real world" style. In reality (he he), it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine Bruce Wayne as a shut in hermit. The fact  he no longer operates as Batman adds even more resonance to the hermit characterization. There's a pretty good joke early on between Bruce and Selina and a certain kind of weapon that I won't reveal.

Selina Kyle is, of course, Catwoman. While Nolan was uncertain of how her character would fit in to his universe, his brother Jonah turned him around. The Dark Knight Rises deals with class divisions and the overthrowing of the rich. Catwoman works perfectly within this context because she's a cat burgular who wasn't born in to privilege. This is in stark contrast to Bruce Wayne, a man who, despite the tragedy of his parents' murder, was always provided for. I liked Hathaway a lot as Catwoman. When Hathaway was first cast I felt it was a little too conventional and "Hollywood" a choice but she does a great job of being funny, sexy and hardedged.

The villain of the film is Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist leader that was trained by Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson), Bruce's former mentor. Bane isn't as diabolically entertaining as Heath Ledger's Joker but nevertheless Bane fascinates me. In many respects he feels the most "realistic" of the villains in the trilogy, making him the most intimidating. I felt a genuine sense of dread as he cuts off Gotham from the outside world and plans to destroy it. Like The Dark Knight, it's a heightened form of terrorist threat but one that's eerily plausiable.

I wish there was a little more of Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon. He seems to spend most of the movie in a hospital and I wish for the last movie there was more of a role for him to play before the final act comes around. I did however love a moment between him and Batman near the end which ties their relationship back to the first film in an unexpected but I feel meaningful way. Joseph Gordon Levitt gives a strong performance as John Blake, a patrol officer who becomes a detective after Gordon is shot. Levitt has a great scene early on with Bale where we get a sense of how much Bruce meant to him as a young orphan since Bruce was an orphan himself, a 'Billionaire orphan" as Blake calls him. I don't want to reveal what else happens in the scene but Blake's knowledge, while it may not make logical sense, makes dramatic and thematic sense.

Michael Caine has a great scene which pays off on a decision Alfred made in The Dark Knight but I felt he and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox also deserved a little more to do. I don't want to reveal too much about Marion Cotillard's character Miranda Tate but I wish she was a little more prominent as well. For a while it seems like she's going to be a new love interest but that''s dropped pretty quickly. She does get to shine towards the end but that's all I'm saying.

And what about the (Bat) man himself, Christian Bale? Bale got a little overshadowed by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart in the last movie but here he has a little more room to shine. Bale is pretty terrific here, convincingly conveying Bruce's lack of passion for anything in life in both sad and humorous way. He also conveys Bruce's brokeness in Bane's prison. And I have to say- I love the Bat voice. While after The Dark Knight came out it seemed a little ridiculous and over the top, I couldn't do without it. It's both hilarious and, when Batman repeats to Bane something he told Batman earlier, pretty intense and awesome.

Since Batman Begins Nolan has been criticized for his action sequences but I feel Nolan has improved over time in terms of his action sequences. I feel his action work here is arguably his best work yet just in terms of clarity. The fight scenes between Batman and Bane have a real weight to them and unlike the hand to hand combat in Batman Begins you can see Batman fighting. The prologue of the film, involving Bane, aside from being a great homage to the James Bond film Licence to Kill, is also a simultaneously unsettling and exciting feat of zero gravity action filmmaking.

There is a long stretch of time when the film does feel too lengthy and I was feeling that the film just wasn't as memorable as The Dark Knight or had as many great moments as that film- or even Inception. But by the time we finally get to the final action set pieces I was thinking "This is kind of great" and I was totally in to the race against time to save the city.

I said it was probably hard for Nolan to say much about Batman after the last two movies and that Batman didn't completely fit in to the film's main battle. This film seems less about Batman's relationship to Gotham's conflict and more about about Bruce Wayne's redemption, in a physical sense at least. While he comes back as Batman early on in the film, it's not enough. He truly has to learn how to be Batman again and that means having to push himself physically more than ever before.

The ending of the film, without revealing too much, is able to both conclude its story yet suggest a continuation of the Batman mythos in a way that works within Nolan's universe as well as provide a intriguing take on the Batman mythos in general. I'll probably have to give the film another viewing in order to catch some plot points I missed before as well as get a firmer hold on the themes the film is exploring. But after just one viewing I feel The Dark Knight Rises, while maybe not the best of the trilogy, nevertheless concludes the trilogy in a respectful and resonant manner.
  

Not Everything, Not Yet: Some Thoughts on the Ending of "The Dark Knight Rises"

The Dark Knight Rises is arguably the most anticipated movie of the summer. I think the anticipation for the film comes from the questions the film raises. Can the film become the box office hit The Dark Knight became? Can Tom Hardy deliver a performance that do justice to Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker? And can Christopher Nolan break the third movie curse that plagues the superher genre and deliver a film that doesn't feel anticlimatic next to the previous film? But I think the biggest question looming in people's minds is whether Nolan will make the decision to kill the Cape furtd Crusader.

It would certainly be a bold move- maybe the boldest in Superhero movie history- and after the ambition of The Dark Knight,  it would feel like Nolan was pushing things ever further for the Batman franchise and the Superhero genre as well. What started as rumblings through the grapevine has become a genuine goosebump inducing "Could it really happen." This theory has gained momentum because of the inclusion of Bane as the villain of the film, the man who broke Batman's back in the Knightfall storyline in the comics. There's also the moment in the latest trailer where Anne Hathaway's Catwoman tells Batman, "You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything," to which he replies, "Not everything, not yet," implying he'll have to sacrifice himself to save Gotham.  It seems that Nolan will include Bane's most iconic moment in the film since in the last two trailers we've seen Bruce Wayne with what appears to be a cane and also in a wheelchair. If any villain from Batman's Rogue Gallery could kill Batman, it'd probably be Bane. Though of course if Bane breaks Batman early on in the film, wouldn't it be overkill to have him kill Batman at the end. We may be looking at a Batman gets broken, gets better and then defeats Bane. This sounds a little too straightforward for the end of the trilogy and I hope it's not that conventional.

If Batman dies, I wonder how Nolan will make it satisfactory instead of awkward and disappointing. It's weird to think of Batman dying on screen- particularly since Bale's Batman has become the subject of parody over the last few years. You can almost see the College Humour spoof right now. If Batman was to die, it'd have to be in a way that also leads to Bane's death, which brings us back to the idea of self-sacrifce. People have discussed the possibility of someone taking up the mantle of Batman after Bruce Wayne dies. This would be a great thematic paradox to play on. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne tells Alfred that as a symbol he can never die- meaning that even if Bruce Wayne dies- the symbol of Batman can live on as another person. Though at the end of the film Rachel tells him that Bruce Wayne is the mask and Batman is the real face. Furthermore, in The Dark Knight we see men trying to be Batman but failing. The question is- can someone else be Batman- is he a symbol- or is Bruce Wayne Batman, still a symbol but one that's forever linked to Bruce Wayne. If the film ended with- say Joseph Gordon Levitt's John Blake becoming Batman, as many have theorized, it'd be a great ambiguous note to end the trilogy on.

I can't say for certain how exactly The Dark Knight Rises will end- and that's why I'm excited. However Nolan ends it though, I think he's done a bang up job with the Batman franchise. And remember...this isn't a car.